Optimistic Prospect of Chinese A (H1N1) Influenza Vaccine Market

It is estimated that purchasing and stockpiling price of A (H1N1) influenza vaccines will be quite low. But the net profit rate will not be lower than common influenza vaccines, which is estimated to be about 60%.

Press Release (PressBurner) Sep 28, 2009 - www.shcri.com -- On the morning of September 14th, 2009, Hualan Biological Engineering Inc. declared that its clinical research on A (H1N1) influenza vaccine had been completed.

According to the clinical research of Hualan, 21 days after the first vaccine injection of 15 mcg, HI antibody levels of children, teenagers, adults and old people come up to 74.53%, 97.14%, 97.14% and 79.05% respectively; 21 days after the second injection, the antibody levels are improved to 99.01%, 100.00%, 97.96% and 96.08% respectively. Immunogenicity is in accordance with the standard of EU and America. Security research shows that the adverse effect rate is no higher than that of seasonal influenza vaccines.

China Ministry of Health claims to produce 13 million doses of vaccines before the end of September, 2009, covering 1% of Chinese population. The scale of Chinese A (H1N1) influenza vaccine market must exceed RMB 260 million. On September 4th, Sinovac Biotech Co., Ltd. and Hualan Biological Engineering Inc. were required by China Ministry of Industry and Information Technology to initially produce 3.3 million doses and 4 million doses respectively.

It is estimated that purchasing and stockpiling price of A (H1N1) influenza vaccines will be quite low. But the net profit rate will not be lower than common influenza vaccines, which is estimated to be about 60%. Price of Chinese common influenza vaccines is between RMB 20 and RMB 30 respectively.

Since autumn, spread of A (H1N1) influenza is been accelerated. According to the notice of China Ministry of Health on September 16th, 1,118 newly confirmed cases of A (H1N1) influenza appeared in Chinese mainland from 3 pm on September 14th to 3 pm on September 16th. 8 were offshore carriers and 1,110 were infected in mainland China. By September 16th, 10,221 confirmed cases were reported in 31 regions of Chinese mainland, including 6,098 cured ones.
Considering the acceleration of influenza spread, national purchasing and stockpiling volume of vaccines will be increased.

On August 21st, 2009, Minister of China Ministry of Health predicted that production of Chinese A (H1N1) influenza vaccines would cover 5% of Chinese population by the end of 2009. As there are 1.3 billion people in China, the first purchasing and stockpiling volume will be 65 million doses. It is regarded as the bottom line of vaccine production in 2009. If each dose is priced at RMB 20, the market scale will be RMB 1.3 billion at least in 2009.

Compared with other countries, Chinese population coverage ratio of A (H1N1) influenza vaccines is quite low (60% in America and 42% in Japan). Therefore, purchasing and stockpiling volume of vaccines will be improved to serve more people in China. It is predicted that the volume will be improved to over 1.3 trillion doses in 2009.

Four companies including Hualan have been authorized to produce A (H1N1) influenza vaccines. Another 6 companies are under examination and their production applications will be authorized soon. Clinical research on A (H1N1) influenza vaccine by Hualan has been completed. Productivity will be further enhanced.

Source: China Research and Intelligence
If you'd like to copy or quote this article, please keep the source information